Green councillors in Glasgow have today demanded a full investigation into reports that council officers knew about plans by the UK Government’s contractor Serco to evict asylum seekers earlier this year, despite earlier claims that leading councillors were ‘blind-sided’ by the plans.

Councillor Kim Long, the Greens’ equalities spokesperson, has called for an investigation to be carried out urgently by one of the Council’s scrutiny committees.

The strengthening of local authority powers to introduce a Workplace Parking Levy will be discussed by Glasgow City Council’s Environment, Sustainability and Carbon Reduction City Policy Development Committee on Tuesday 27th November 2018.

Nottingham City Council has introduced a Workplace Parking Levy to tackle problems associated with traffic congestion and this has provided funding for major transport infrastructure initiatives and acted as an incentive for employers to manage their workplace parking provision.

Green Councillors were yesterday welcoming plans to provide much-needed attention to the city's neglected High Street.

The new High Street Area Strategy and Action Plan was passed at the City Administration Committee on 1st November and is the result of a year's worth of cross-party discussions, community and business consultation and extra dedicated council staff time. (For full details, see here.)

Since monday evening a huge number of Glasgow City Council workers have downed tools, either going on strike or refusing to cross picket lines. We in the Scottish Green Party support, as we have always done, their continued fight for equal pay.

The scheduled two-day industrial action has caused sizeable disruption and shows both how seldom homecare workers, cleaners, learning support workers and others go on strike and also how important their work is to our city.

It is estimated that the average Glaswegian adult buys more than 3 plastic water bottles every week, which adds up to a startling 175 bottles every year per person. In total, the UK uses 13 billion plastic bottles every year. Only 7.5 billion are recycled, with the remaining 5.5 billion causing substantial amounts of single-use plastic waste.

In addition to this, the production of bottled water is around five hundred times more carbon intensive than tap water, and the quality tests for bottled brands are far less stringent than for the water that comes out of our taps.

Green Councillors in Glasgow aim to stop the SNP administration backtracking on previously-agreed plans to bring in a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) for all vehicles by 2021, accusing them of lacking ambition for clean air.

Glasgow has outgrown the private car. The air we breathe is unsafe, our roads are crumbling under ever-increasing traffic volumes and our transport system is failing to address the needs of the half of households in the city without access to a car. Other parts of the city are benefiting from investment to make it easier for people of all ages and abilities to walk and cycle safely.

Greens in Glasgow are urging fellow Councillors to back a major change to the planning system which would give local people the right to appeal planning decisions for the first time.

A Green Party motion to be debated by Glasgow City Council on 17 May calls for an ‘equal right of appeal’ to be added to the Planning (Scotland) Bill, which is currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament.